"A Royal Pain" is the second in the Lady Georgiana series by Rhys Bowen. In this one, set in Depression era London, Georgie's house cleaning business isn't going that well but she is scraping by, living alone in Rannoch House and eating baked beans and toast. One day she is summoned to Buck House by Queen Mary. It seems the Queen is very concerned about her son David's inappropriate attachment to "that awful American woman", Wallis Simpson, and has decided to try to entice him to a more suitable girl. Georgie is shocked and much dismayed to hear that the Queen has invited Princess Hannelore of Bavaria to London and that she will be staying with Georgie at Rannoch House!Georgie agrees (one never says "no" to Her Majesty) and then sets about trying to find a way to get servants to help at Rannoch House and enough money to feed the entourage coming from Bavaria. She finds a cook and a butler when she enlists the unlikely help of her Cockney grandfather and his neighbor/lady-friend, Mrs. Huggins, who agree to come to the house and give her a hand. The Princess and her companion, Baroness Rottenmeister, show up a few days later and Lady Georgie finds herself with quite a handful in Princess Hanni.
As the story unfolds, dead bodies begin piling up and Georgie is once again asked to help sort out what is happening. There are Communists and debauched nobility, drugs and wild parties. All in all, it's a pretty entertaining story with a decent mystery and of course a little romance as Lady Georgie trys to find the right man for her and avoid Lord "Fishface" or being sent to the country to be a companion to her old maid aunt.
